In modern times, cellular phones serve their users for far more than just conversation. Therefore, modern cellular networks offer their users various value added services, such as web browsing, messaging, etc. In today's cellular networks many of the value added services are implemented on the network servers or by a third party connected to the network via a distributed data network, such as the internet. For this reason, a phone user can only access these services via an intermediate media service such as web browsing, dialing or IVR (Interactive Voice Response). This makes these services difficult and cumbersome to access and often entails an added charge for the intermediate media service. This fact, often times, may prevent or limit the activation and usage of these services.
Accordingly, there is a need in the field of communication, for cellular value added services, which services' design minimizes or negates the need of an intermediate media user access.
A social networking site focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail, instant messaging and blog like services. Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people.
In general, social networking services allow users to create a profile for themselves, and can be broken down into two broad categories: internal social networking (ISN); and external social networking (ESN) sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Bebo. Both types can increase the feeling of community among people. An ISN is a closed/private community that consists of a group of people within a company, association, society, education provider and organization or even an “invite only” group created by a user in an ESN. An ESN is open/public and available to all web users to communicate and are designed to attract advertisers. ESN's can be smaller specialized communities (i.e. linked by a single common interest e.g. TheSocialGolfer, ACountryLife.Com, Great Cooks Community) or they can be large generic social networking sites (e.g. MySpace, Facebook etc.).
However, whether specialized or generic there is commonality across the general approach of social networking sites. Users can upload a picture of themselves, create their ‘profile’, add a textual and/or graphical description of what they have in mind right now, post videos and more. Users can often be “friends” with other users. In most social networking services, both users must confirm that they are friends before they are linked and able to share information with each other. For example, if Alice lists Bob as a friend, then Bob would have to approve Alice's friend request before they are listed as friends. Some social networking sites have a “favorites” feature that does not need approval from the other user. Social networks usually have privacy controls that allow the user to choose who can view their profile or contact them, etc.
Several social networks in Asian markets such as India, China, Japan and Korea have reached not only a high usage but also a high level of profitability. Services such as QQ (China), Mixi (Japan), Cyworld (Korea) or the mobile-focused service Mobile Game Town by the company DeNA in Japan (which has over 10 million users) are all profitable, setting them apart from their western counterparts.
Some social networks have additional features, such as the ability to create groups that share common interests or affiliations, upload or stream live videos, and hold discussions in forums. Geosocial networking co-opts internet mapping services to organize user participation around geographic features and their attributes.
Lately, mobile social networking has become popular. In most mobile communities, mobile phone users can now create their own profiles, make friends, participate in chat rooms, create chat rooms, hold private conversations, share photos and videos, and share blogs by using their mobile phone. Mobile phone users are basically open to every option that someone sitting on the computer has. Some companies provide wireless services which allow their customers to build their own mobile community and brand it, but one of the most popular wireless services for social networking in North America is Facebook Mobile. Other companies provide new innovative features which extend the social networking experience into the real world.
Mobile social networking is currently accomplished using a web browser or via stand-alone applications for mobile devices. Both options operate independently of the other communication functions of the mobile device. Therefore, although these applications may allow a user to perform virtually any action on the social networks that could be performed on a home computer, they do not take advantage of the data contained on these sites in order to improve the other communication functions performed by the mobile device. Moreover, each application is site specific, communicating with only one social networking site. There is still a need for improved mobile social networking.